Rebirthing
by Beth Nottingham
Summary: After the war, when Azula was spirited away from a mental institution, Zuko searched for her in vain. Years later, he runs into a girl who looks just like her, except that she's only a child. Rue has Azula's face, but she's pyrophobic and her greatest ambition is to be apprenticed to a merchant. Too bad no one will believe that she's not Azula reborn. Post-Series
1. Reversed

_Prologue: Reversed_

Li the security guard had just been through a very long day indeed. He'd been running around from the time he overslept and been rushed out of the house without his morning tea. At almost midnight, he was still on the clock, striding through the corridors of the mental institution where he worked and checking to make sure all the doors were properly bolted. Incident after incident of patients attacking the doctors, breaking free of their restraints or attempting to harm themselves blurred together into one long headache of a day. He had been forced to split his lunch break into three short segments due to being called away from his food so often.

The moon had risen some hours ago, full and bright, to stream through the windows and bathe the outer rooms with its colorless glow. The guard carried no torch, not really needing one, and was checking the locks by moonlight. He would be able to go home as soon as he was finished, and in his haste he kept nearly skipping doors and having to go back and re-check.

Finally he reached the cell on the end; the one lately occupied by the most frightening—and worst damaged—patient he had ever encountered. She had only been there for a few weeks since the war ended, but already she had put three doctors and a score of security personnel in the hospital.

Hurry or no hurry, he _fully_ intended to make a thorough inspection of Former Fire Lord Azula's lock, but he was deterred when he saw a bright light shining from under the door. It was silver like the moonlight, but much stronger, blazing through the keyhole and the narrow gaps between the door and the frame. He reached out to open the little peep-hole and see what in the spirits' name was going on inside when the glow was suddenly extinguished.

Li stood frozen in the hallway, wondering if he ought to go inside or double-bolt the door and leave. The moon's faint luminescence was obscured by a cloud, and without a torch, the man—who was no fire bender—found himself enveloped in total darkness.

With a creak of rusty hinges, the door swung slowly open.

-0-

Dr Yabu, whose evening shift had begun only a few hours earlier, was in a far better humor than his coworker as he strolled absentmindedly back and forth across the courtyard, reviewing the patients' most recent files and making notes on a scroll about possible treatments. He did not look up from his work until he heard the shattering of glass somewhere above him and to his right.

Spinning around, he caught sight of a figure swinging lithely out of a broken window on the third floor, gripping the top of the window-frame in one hand and holding a small bundle in the other; a package about the size of a loaf of bread.

Yabu stared up towards the intruder as the moon came back out behind the rooftop, but he was disappointed. No matter how much light the moon gave off or how much he strained his bespectacled eyes, he could not seem to see the person's features, or indeed to determine their age or gender.

He did see one thing though, and it was a thing that deeply puzzled him. The bundle in the stranger's arm was not bread.

It was—well, it _appeared_ to be—a human baby, complete with squirming and shrieking at the top of its lungs.

'What on earth…?' he thought in blank astonishment, as the institutions' security guards charged the intruder from either end of the roof. There was a blinding flash of light, and they all fell down stunned.

Yabu's eyes followed the intruder as he…or she… or _it_… ran across the roofing tiles and vanished over the edge. After that, he listened for a long moment until the baby's cries became too far away to hear.

It wasn't until nearly a quarter of an hour had passed that he finally managed to wake up enough of the medical staff to get the perturbing story from each of them that they did not remember choosing to go to sleep on their desks and in the hallways. Not one of them had seen the intruder.

It was not until the next morning that Li, making his rounds in a rather better mood for having drunk his tea, checked the cell opposite the broken window.

The alarm was raised and the palace contacted. All procedures were followed.

But it was hours too late.

Princess Azula had vanished without a trace.

**A/N: Hello readers! This will be my third multi-chapter fic, and the first one in which I do not have any original characters in major roles! (There are still plenty of OCs sprinkled around of course; they're just not main characters.) I'm so excited! It's also my first non-romance fic that still focuses heavily on interpersonal relationships; this will be hard… =^_^= **

_**Rebirthing**_** is rated K+ for mild dark themes and brief mild violence which does not overstep the bounds of the original series. Later I will change the rating to "T" for more violence and darker themes, but there shouldn't be anything particularly horrible. Honestly I think that what happened to Zuko to give him that scar is more graphic than **_**anything**_** I am going to write.**

**I was planning to wait until I'd written all the subsequent chapters **_**before**_** I started posting, so I could update regularly. But with this story, although it's all neatly outlined and planned chapter by chapter, I haven't yet found the right combination of time, inspiration and motivation to get it finished. There may be some long, annoying waits ahead; ye be warned. (I work and I have school, so I'm not kidding about the time part!) I **_**have**_**, however, completed through Chapter 5 at the time of this post, so at least the first few parts should be posted at reasonable intervals.**

**I hope you enjoy the story! Kudos to anyone who knows where I got the fic title, and double-kudos and cyber-cake to anyone who can say where I got the idea for the chapter titles!**

**~B. Nottingham**

**Post Scriptum: Reviews are welcome, constructive criticism is appreciated, flames will be donated to Azula, who is a little short on them at the moment (if she's not too proud to take second-hand bad attitude). :D **


	2. Remembered

_Chapter 1: Remembered_

After eleven years of marriage, Zuko was well-accustomed to waking up with Mai beside him, or curled up in his arms if it was cold out.

After more than a dozen years of knowing them, it had become _no_ _less dreadfully annoying_ when, on a chilly morning while camping, he woke up and found Aang and Sokka snuggled up on either side of him. Rolling his eyes, he sat up abruptly, sending his two friends tumbling in opposite directions as he headed down to a nearby stream to wash up.

"Wait," Sokka moaned, still half-sleeping, "giant flamey mushroom, come back…"

"You mean 'human-space-heater,'" Zuko corrected him irritably, though he wasn't even sure the Water Tribesman could hear him, "and no way, buddy."

It was early fall, and though the Fire Nation's climate was usually fairly warm compared to the rest of the world, it could still get very brisk. That was exactly the reason why Zuko had suggested they bring Appa with them. On cold nights, if someone was going to get dog-piled, he'd much rather volunteer the furry bison, who was just as warm—and much more tolerant—than he, the ever-warm fire bender.

Splashing the bracingly cold water from the stream on his face and running his damp fingers through his long brown hair, he took a deep, meditative breath. This maddening cuddle-habit was not a new convention the other men had just suddenly formed. The last time he went on a camping trip with his friends, he had found himself in the center of a general mash of people, male, female, human and otherwise, with Momo curled up on his head.

"It's cold out," Sokka would always excuse himself, ignoring everyone's reminders that he had grown up in a frozen country. "I just naturally gravitate towards the warmest spot I can find." The harassed Fire Lord had tried to teach Aang how to 'radiate in his sleep,' as everyone put it, but the Avatar was an Air Bender foremost, and couldn't seem to get the knack of it.

At least up until three years ago, Uncle had been as much a victim of the piling as he.

In the twelve years since the war, a lot had changed; not just from the death of everyone's favorite tea-loving mentor. They had all—including a kicking and screaming Toph—grown up a lot; he, Aang and Sokka had married Mai, Katara and Suki respectively, and he and Sokka had become fathers. Aang would be joining the parenthood party some time in the next few months.

Some things never changed though, he reflected as he walked back up the hill to the campsite. For example, the fact that he always managed to land on the bottom of the dog-pile. Toph's eerie ability to know exactly how many ounces he gained when he took time off from his training to finish his bureaucratic responsibilities was also the same as it had always been.

Zuko had really grown into his station as Fire Lord, whereas at first he had tended to be insecure about his decisions, and had relied heavily on advice from his friends and especially from Uncle. Over the last decade-and-a-bit, he had become accustomed to the daily mountains of paperwork, the weekly queues of citizens with complaints, the near-constant nagging of his advisors and council members, and was beginning to resign himself to the fact that he actually worked _more_ on holidays than any other day of the year.

Still, he needed a break every now and then. That was why, when Aang had suddenly had a pressing need to go and visit the Air Temple a week ago, he had jumped at a chance to go with, if for no other reason than to provide some company. Sokka had heard from Suki who had it from Katara, and they had decided to make it a "Men's Camping Trip." Leaving a note for Mai asking her to _please_ explain to the council and the advisors and the Fire-Sages that something _unavoidable_ had come up, he had put on his old traveling cloak and slipped out the loading door at the back of the palace grounds.

Appa had a bit of a tummy-bug, so they had taken the land route on ostrich-horses, and he and Sokka had waited at the foot of the mountain while Aang flew up alone on his glider. They had swapped lies and jokes for around half an hour before a series of loud explosions reminded them that where the Avatar went, irritated spirits tended to congregate. Mounting their beasts, they had started off at a gallop when they spotted Aang flying away at full-speed above them.

Later he explained briefly that the conflict was resolved, with the minor exception of the unfortunate dining hall, which had been reduced to rubble and ash in the scuffle.

On the whole, the trip really was very little more than what Sokka had dubbed it, and now that they were within sight of the Royal City, Zuko was mentally preparing himself for having to sneak into his own house like a thief, and devising strategies to get a moment alone with his sons for a quick game of hide-and-explode before anyone knew he was back.

His family, once a fractured institution that caused him nothing but agony, was now the joy of his life. Of course, it helped that the two members of it most responsible for that situation were no longer prominent figures in his life. His father was firmly behind bars, and had been for twelve years without any attempts to escape or other issues. His sister…

Well, she was no longer around, so her influence was certainly dulled.

Azula's mental breakdown had been severe, and after she finally calmed down and stopped spitting fire all over the place, he had brought in doctors and security personnel to remove her to a mental facility where she could be both treated and restrained. He had expected all sorts of problems—escape attempts, suicide attempts, bribery, threats and the like—but when he had received a report of her apparent _abduction_ only three weeks after she was incarcerated, it took him by surprise. For the next two years, he had focused intently on tracking her, only to find that she was gone without leaving a single footprint.

He had completely ignored the ridiculous story about the baby that the one doctor who seemed able to remember the night's events had sworn to. That couldn't have _possibly_ been right; the man had been looking at her in the dark, so how could he know what he saw?

Putting thoughts of Azula out of his mind, he pulled his damp hair into his typical half-pony-top-knot and fingered the royal crest in his pocket, thinking of exactly what pillar he would duck behind to don it.

-0-

That same morning, another set of three travelers awoke and prepared to enter the royal city. The An-Din family, a middle-aged couple and their young daughter, had slept that night wrapped in cloaks beside a wagon full of produce from their farm. They were journeying towards the market in the Capitol to sell what they had grown and purchase wool and tools and other things they would need for winter.

Though her parents had done this many times before and were quite at ease, the little girl, Rue, was about as excited as a child is able to be. She had turned eleven the previous spring, and that meant that for the first time she would not be left at Aunt Lila's house, but be allowed to come with and help with the grown-up job of minding their little stall. She would also have the opportunity to see the Capitol in all its glory. Also, she'd pick out her own present, instead of it being a surprise brought back by her parents as a taste of far-off splendor.

Her golden eyes were open long before her parents had stirred, and she was washed and dressed, sitting expectantly in the wagon when they finally started to wake up.

"Are you sure you would not like to sleep some more, Sunshine?" her mother teased as she braided her long light brown hair—so unlike Rue's own pin-straight, chocolate colored tresses—and made a long business of fastening her cloak. "We can't have you falling asleep in the middle of the royal road."

"I'm fine mummy," she responded, trying her best not to sound as impatient as she felt. Her own hair was pulled back into a high ponytail to keep it out of the way, except the strands at the front. These would not hang straight like a bang no matter how short she cut them, and formed two long tails above her temples, framing her face. "Let's go, come on!"

"I think she'll spontaneously combust if we dawdle any longer," her father commented with a laugh and a playful sparkle in his grey eyes. The lines of his careworn face seemed to soften when he laughed, and he looked younger than his true age. He had always looked _stronger_ than a man of fifty ought to. It was a consequence of working hard on the farm to support his small family. "Let's get a move on."

-0-

Zuko's eyes flitted restlessly between the stalls at the market, not really looking at the wares as much as trying to judge the general mood of the people. They all seemed fairly content and cheerful, and that conclusion motivated him to do his best as their leader more than any report he could read. He tended to only see the common people when they had some complaint that needed solving, or when they were all on their best behavior. It was a rare opportunity to "observe them in their natural habitat," as Toph would put it jokingly when he voiced his thoughts aloud.

His gaze slid to a family on a wagon… and froze, locked on the face of the little girl beside the driver.

He rubbed his eyes until blue and green stars exploded in his vision and looked again. He hadn't made a mistake.

She couldn't be more than thirteen—she was probably a lot less than thirteen, actually. She always had looked older than she was. He gaped openly as she rode past, the wagon's clattering racket seeming to fill his ears and drown out every other noise.

He sensed rather than heard Sokka's sharp intake of breath; felt Aang stiffen in shock from half a meter away.

Then the back end of the wagon drew level with and passed them, leaving them to stare at one another in blank amazement and horror.

'_Azula!_' he mouthed, barely believing the evidence of his own senses.

**A/N: An-Din is supposed to be pronounced, "On-dean." **


	3. Revealed

_Chapter 2: Revealed_

"_No one_ tells my wife about this," Zuko growled to his companions when he finally regained his faculties enough to speak. He did not know what was going on, but alarming Mai needlessly was out of the question. This girl probably had nothing whatsoever to do with his sister—and certainly nothing at all to do with the baby in the crazy doctor's story—and if Mai ever found out about her, she would panic for certain.

"Or mine," Sokka added, nodding emphatically. If Suki ever discovered that a person existed who was identical to the woman who had defeated and imprisoned her… Even though it was certainly just a coincidence, he reminded himself hastily.

"A secret among _men_," Aang summarized, an image of pregnant Katara having a conniption flashing momentarily across his vision. They all nodded assent.

The rest of the trip home was fairly uneventful, except for the fact that Zuko found himself looking up with dread every time a wagon approached them from behind, and looking down again with relief and irritation when it was someone other than the girl and the aging couple in the driver's seat.

"Did you get a good look at the woman?" He finally ventured to ask the others.

"She had light brown hair and brown eyes," Aang responded, "and she was way too old to be Azula, if you're thinking what I was thinking." Zuko shrugged. He had indeed wondered if the girl could have been his niece. He had gotten a good look at the man, and his dark, swarthy skin had looked nothing like the ivory complexion Azula—and her doppelganger—wore. Just because she didn't look like them, however, didn't mean they weren't her parents. It in no way suggested that her (evil, conniving, highly wanted for various crimes and completely insane) mother could be lurking around some corner, waiting to pounce.

He was being paranoid, and he knew it. He didn't even know if his sister's kids would look like her at all. It didn't help that he had three boys and no girls, so he had no clue what to expect from female offspring. Weren't girls supposed to look like their fathers while boys looked like their mothers? His sons had a general mix of traits from himself and Mai, with a sprinkling of features belonging to other members of the family; her father's nose, his mother's ears and so on.

The girl he had seen—_if_ he had seen her correctly—was identical to how Azula had been in her late childhood or just beginning to mature. The way her hair fell, the shape of her face, the confident way she held up her head and kept her spine straight were all the same. The only feature that looked out of place was the eager smile on her face. Somehow the expression seemed off, though he had to admit to himself, he hadn't seen her, smiling or otherwise, in more than a decade. How was he to judge whether this girl's excited grin was too sincere?

-0-

Rue's heart was pounding with excitement like a bird fluttering in her chest as she helped unpack the goods from the wagon and set them up in the little open-fronted tent that served as their temporary store. Di'o, the cabbage-seller's assistant, had come jogging up to help her unpack while his boss chewed out some unfortunate soul who had breathed on his precious merchandise. The old man was mostly chair-bound, but he certainly had a lot of spirit left in him.

"So I see you weren't bluffing about coming this year," Di'o congratulated her, ruffling her hair and messing up her ponytail. She laughed, pushing his big hand away playfully. He had been born in Omashu, but he'd been traveling around assisting his uncle's business for the last four years as the old man's health began its decline. They'd met during his first year of work when he wintered in their village, and she had seen him every winter since then. She used to envy him dreadfully. He had traveled all over the world—granted, selling nothing more interesting than cabbages—while she had never been more than ten miles from her little farming village in the mountains.

-0-

The fact that Ty Lee was included in the wives' category needed no spoken agreement among the three returning travelers, as the ever-breezy acrobat caught them sneaking in with a "welcome back," and, "the Fire Sages are prophesying the nation's ruler-less doom as we speak."

The fact that Toph somehow qualified as a man also needed no explanation. After all, if she wasn't in on the secret, she'd know something was up and give them away. Better that she find out immediately than let the others know when she finally snooped out the answer. So it was that even though each of the three witnesses had promised himself to drop the issue, Sokka and Aang found themselves holed up with Toph around a fire in an unused room that night, throwing around ideas for who the girl might be, and what ought to be done about it.

By the time Zuko was done with all the important papers he had to sign and all the reports he had to catch up on from his absence—an awful lot of work, considering the nation had been peacefully running itself for more than a decade with very little government intervention—it was nearly midnight, and his sons were sleeping soundly. He leaned against the doorjamb of the twins' room, contemplating the way Daz's hand was stretched toward Ijon's on the bedside table, their fingers mere centimeters apart. Though the boys were both accomplished fire benders and precocious learners, it was moments like this that reminded their father that they were still only five.

"So," Mai addressed him in a murmur as she slipped up behind him, quiet as a shadow, careful not to disturb their sleeping children, "where did you go?"

He smiled and wrapped his arms around her.

"Just the air temple," he replied in a low voice. "Aang had some Avatar business to attend to, and I was about to go berserk and rip all the hangings off of the throne-room walls if one more person asked me to draft one more law." He sighed softly. "Honestly, we need less laws and more _common sense_, not the other way around."

Mai chuckled and nodded in general agreement to both of his statements. She had seen him near his snapping-point; it was often her idea to run away together somewhere on an uber-important trip to some secret locale. She had also heard his theories on self-governance and seen the difficulty he had in trying to teach the old government dogs new tricks.

"Zonan's getting to the age where he'd really appreciate going on the 'men's camping trips,'" she reminded him, and he nodded thoughtfully. At nine, his eldest was just entering the stage of his maturity where he found it absolutely critical to be viewed as a young man and not a just a big kid. It really would be a good idea to start spiriting him away with them.

That girl couldn't have been too much older than Zonan, he thought distractedly as he and Mai settled into bed for the night. In anyone else's case, he would have considered that reason enough to alleviate suspicion. But Azula had only been fourteen when she took over the Fire Nation; only a young teen when she suggested their megalomaniac of a father literally burn their enemies to the ground.

-0-

Rue's throat was a little scratchy from calling out wares and talking to people all day, but some tea before bed soothed it wonderfully, preparing her voice for the next day. Her parents did most of the actual haggling, but she would make conversation with the customers and sometimes suggest additional products. Once in a while, they would even take her advice, on account of her pretty face, Di'o had said.

"It's my budding skills as a merchant!" she insisted heatedly when he said that, but he just laughed and mussed her hair more. She'd had to redo it three times, and she was considering just giving it up as a bad job and wearing it loose the next day.

-0-

Zuko's dreams were troubled, shifting between memories of his thrice-cursed sister and various scenes linked together which made little to no sense; all of which made him feel stressed and upset until he finally woke up and doused his head with cold water.

The morning brought relief. His nonsensical nightmares were chased away by the strong real-ness of the sunlight streaming through the window and Mai's warm arm slung across him. Breakfast found Aang and Sokka looking a bit on the tired side as well, though Toph appeared to have gotten plenty of beauty-rest. Either she didn't believe there was anything interesting going on—which would make sense, since a person who merely _looked_ identical to someone else wouldn't really resonate with her—or she just had uncommonly strong nerves.

After breakfast he had more kingly duties to attend to, but by evening he had managed to finish them and figured it might be a good idea to take his family on a little walk before some other avalanche of papers buried him in his study for the next week. The brisk autumn weather made their muffled figures less conspicuous than they would have been otherwise, and allowed them to hide their faces from the unsuspecting populace. They often strolled through the town without any disguises, but if they wanted a chance to have family-time, it really was necessary to go cloaked and hooded.

The twins ran on ahead, laughing and chattering about which would win in a fight, a grasshopper or a cricket-bee. Zonan stayed between his parents, not speaking often, but listening intently to their conversation, as if to prove he was becoming a mature grown-up.

-0-

"They're good for the complexion," Rue explained to a young woman who was admiring one of her cantaloupes. "Eating lots of melon helps reduce dryness, you see. They taste delicious too!"

-0-

It wasn't a wise decision. Zuko felt the urge overtake his feet faster than his brain as he started down the market street, but by the time his mind had reminded him of _why_ it was so unwise, he had no excuse to suddenly turn around and go back.

Perhaps she wouldn't be there. Perhaps she had been on her way out of the city. For that matter, maybe the whole thing was a figment of his imagination, brought on by that morning's foray into morbid thoughts.

Of course he wasn't that lucky.

He felt Mai stiffen beside him and instinctively cast his eyes around for the source of the disturbance.

"Thanks; come again," a high, feminine voice exclaimed from off to his left. He recognized it as certainly as if it were his own sister's… because it undeniably _was_.

"Zuko?" Mai whispered, but when he glanced at her and made eye-contact, her initial shock morphed into anger. She could see in his face that he knew.

"We saw her briefly on our way in yesterday," he confessed in a hurried whisper, squeezing her hand in an attempt to reassure her, but she pulled it away.

"I didn't want you to worry over nothing!" he exclaimed quietly, anticipating her demand before she had a chance to say the obligatory 'why didn't you tell me?'

"Over nothing?" she hissed angrily. "Have you forgotten everything? What she did to you, to me, to the world?" She glared balefully at the spot on his lower chest where an angry red scar lay beneath his cloak and robe.

"But this girl can't possibly be her," he argued, making placating gestures with his hands. "She's much too young! It's just a coincidence; a freak of nature! Forget about it, okay?"

"Well that was rude," groused the girl's voice, suddenly much nearer. With a rush of embarrassment, Zuko realized that not only had he raised his voice to nearly a shout, they had stopped to argue directly in front of the girl's food stall. "What do you need to go and insult _me_ for? I'm not a freak of nature!"

The flummoxed Fire Lord tried to speak, but there really wasn't anything he could say to defend himself, short of telling her that she was his evil sister's not-so-evil twin.

"Sorry," he finally managed, slipping his fingers into Mai's hand and trying to surreptitiously extract her and the boys from the scene. People were starting to stare.

"We'll say whatever we like," Mai snapped, dropping Zuko's searching hand like hot coals and advancing a step forward.

The girl took a step back, half glaring, half frightened.

"What's going on?" demanded a boy's voice, and a youth of around thirteen strode up, stepping between the girl and Mai, looking at the latter with an air of sizing her up.

"Not sure," the girl replied with a nervous laugh. "The scary lady and the rude man just suddenly—"

"You're one to talk, _Azula_," Mai spat venomously, stepping forward aggressively again, but found her way blocked by the boy, who advanced and slid gracefully into a fighting stance, smoke rising from his fingertips. Zuko edged forward, ready to duck in front of his wife at a moment's notice, either to restrain or to protect her, he wasn't really certain.

"Di'o," the girl addressed the boy nervously, "maybe we should just go and get mom and dad…"

"It's fine, Rue," the boy, Di'o, replied evenly, never taking his eyes off Mai. "I'm sure they were just leaving."

"Rue," a deep man's voice called from behind the tent, "I need a hand!" Rue glanced in the direction of the sound.

"I'll be right there, dad!" she shouted back, looking nervously at Di'o's back as he stood shielding her. Zuko saw her gulp tensely.

"Daddy," Daz murmured, tugging on Zuko's cloak. "Mommy's being scary." The Fire Lord swept his son up into his arms, privately agreeing with him. Mai's dark temper had mellowed out since she grew out of her gothic stage, but on the rare occasions when she did get angry, it was usually best to just stay out of her way.

Daz snuggled into his father's protective embrace, and inadvertently brushed his hood aside. The dark brown material was as subject to gravity as any other piece of fabric, and before he could catch it, it was piled around his neck, exposing his pale, scarred face to everyone on the street.

The result was immediate. Bystanders shouted his name, bowing and waving their friends over. Di'o stiffened, his eyes widening, and then bowed, though he never took his eyes off of Mai. Rue made a small surprised squeak of horror and flopped over in a bow that couldn't have been comfortable on her spine.

"Oh my gosh," she exclaimed in a panic. "Sorry, I didn't know who you were!" All the color had drained out of her face, but then she quirked her head up to look at him, as if as an afterthought.

"You're still pretty rude though…" she remarked flatly, eyes narrowed in annoyance. Then with another frightened noise, she clamped both hands over her mouth.

"Get me out of here before I dig my own grave," she whispered hoarsely to Di'o, who slid back and took her hand. The two of them had dashed off down the street before anyone could call after them.

"Is something the matter, my lord?"

Zuko glanced over toward the market stall Rue had just vacated. A middle-aged woman with long light brown hair and crows' feet was wringing her hands in concern, her green eyes darting between the members of the royal family, who had all un-hooded by now for lack of any reason not to.

"That girl," he addressed the woman, ignoring the way Mai was fuming at his side, "what can you tell me about her?"

"Well," the woman replied, perplexed, "she's my daughter; she's eleven, her name's Rue An-Din… What do you want to know?" Zuko wasn't Toph, but something in the woman's manner and speech seemed false to him. That wasn't good; it certainly didn't support the "it's just a coincidence" story of which he was trying to convince Mai.

The woman's husband walked up and stood beside her; a big, solid man with intelligent grey eyes and black hair. He bowed respectfully and then folded his arms over his chest.

"Sire," he addressed Zuko, and then nodded to Mai and the kids. "Can I help you with something?"

"No," the Fire Lord replied, his eyes taking in the matching swarthy complexions of both parents at a glance. "We were just out for a walk. Please excuse us."

Mai had picked up Ijon and had him in her arms much the same way a child clings to a teddy bear when upset. It seemed to be working though; when she felt the touch of her husband's hand on her arm, she yielded to the pressure and headed back towards the palace. Zonan trotted along between his angry mother and concerned father on the way home, and he was then delegated by the former to take his brothers and play in the garden.

"They looked _nothing_ like her," Mai sighed, sinking onto a couch and covering her eyes with her hand. "Those two can't be her parents. Compared to them, she's another being altogether."

Zuko could only nod, dropping into a chair. He couldn't deny it any more, though what the real explanation was, he couldn't even guess.

"We thought maybe," he ventured after a long silence, "that girl could have been Azula's daughter." Mai shook her head.

"She's _identical_," the Fire Lady protested, gesturing with her hands as though laying a piece of evidence down in the air. "Zo and the twins are a mix between us, and look at Suki and Sonayana. Sonya takes after her mom if _anyone_ does, and even they don't look _that_ much alike. No, I don't think that explains it."

"What then?" Zuko prodded, catching the look of understanding and dread in Mai's light hazel eyes.

"You remember when she disappeared," she began hesitantly, "that insane story the doctor told? The one about the baby?"

"The one that we all agreed was completely impossible?" Zuko reminded her, raising an eyebrow. She nodded.

"That'd be the one," she affirmed, pointedly ignoring his reminder. They stared each other down for a moment. "You could ask Aang if it was _possible_," she suggested. "After all, if by some chance it was, it'd certainly have involved spirits."

Zuko jerked his head noncommittally, but his wife knew him well enough to know that he was agreeing.

"Rue An-Din," Mai murmured. "If she _did_ turn out to be Azula…"

"I know," Zuko growled tiredly. "What a tangled mess this is turning out to be."

Mai was about to speak when she suddenly stood, holding up her hand for silence. Zuko's eyes flashed toward the door, and with horror, he realized he could hear retreating footsteps.

"Uh-oh," he hissed, and wrenched open the door, but the eavesdropper was long gone.

-0-

Rue slept badly that night after she and Di'o finally got up the courage to return, and she had told the story in all its minute details to her agitated parents. By the time Di'o was convinced that she was okay and his uncle had stopped trying to make her feel better with free cabbage, she was about ready to sleep for a week.

Unfortunately, she couldn't get her mind to stop running at full speed, and she tossed and turned until past midnight.

Rolling onto her side and squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to focus on some small insignificant thing with little success; the number of cobs of corn she had sold that day couldn't keep her interest, and lunch with Di'o had been uneventful.

Sighing, she opened her eyes, and found herself staring at a man with a black mask over his face.

He was kneeling beside her bedroll, reaching a hand out to cover her mouth…

**A/N: Di'o is pronounced like the letters "d" and "o;" "Dee-oh." Zonan shouldn't be hard to say; it's Zoh-non. The twins are "Doz" (like "dot" but with "z" instead of "t") and Ee-yon. **

**If any Mai fans are wondering what Zuko's **_**damage**_** was when he was considering throwing himself between her and Di'o, it was because Di'o was a fire bender. She's perfectly capable of defending herself from non-benders, and she's **_**usually**_** able to bring down benders as well, but he wasn't taking any chances with her current distracted state.**


	4. Reanimated

_Chapter 3: Reanimated_

Rue bolted backwards, flipping and rolling out of her bedroll and somehow getting her legs under her. Forcing her bare feet against the floor of the tent behind the little shop, she sprang through the back flap, dashing down the street in her cream-colored under dress. Her red tunic and sash lay folded by her bedside; it wasn't like she had time to dress properly with strange men attacking her in the middle of the night.

Heart pounding, she flew down one street, turned sharply onto another, and doubled back through an alleyway to a third. The fabric of her garment swished around her calves, and she grabbed fistfuls of it to free her legs.

Were they still after her? Who were they? The questions pumped through her with her racing blood. Were they from the palace? What about her parents? They had been sitting up talking in the shop when she had gone to bed. Were they all right? Why oh why was all this happening to her family? The An-Dins were as ordinary as they came; no criminal records, no distant relatives causing trouble… What were those men after? Why did the Fire Lady suddenly hate her for no reason?

She caught her foot on a stone and stumbled, skinning her knees and right elbow and clamping her jaws shut over a cry. Half running, half crawling, she scrambled into a doorway and huddled down, hoping the elbow-length sleeves of her dress weren't too visible in the darkness. The moon was barely a sliver of pale, sickly light in the starless sky, and wraithlike clouds kept drifting in front of it, plunging the town into utter blackness.

She listened carefully, at first hearing nothing but her own heartbeat sounding in her ears. Then she caught another rhythm; a different sort of pounding.

Footsteps, running at full speed…

Footfalls, drawing closer…

She held her breath, covering her mouth and burying her face in her knees. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the darkness gradually recede before the dancing illumination of someone's fire. Her blood ran cold. She hoped at least it was only a torch.

Peeking around the frame of the doorway she was hiding in, she caught sight of her pursuers; a dozen or more men in dark uniforms, holding crackling flames in their palms. Her heart missed a beat, and then set off again, at a slower pace, but with a force that made her chest ache.

They were fire benders.

All Rue's short life, nothing had terrified her more than fire. The fact that half the people in her nation could wield it at will did nothing to help this irrational fear. It wasn't so much that she was afraid of being burned exactly, but something in the wild, untamable nature of flame made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and her mouth go dry. If she had known that Di'o was a bender when they first met, it probably would have taken her a lot longer to get used to him and become friends.

The hunters turned this way and that, trying to decide which roads to send which people on. Rue was at war with herself, unsure of whether to remain where she was, or bolt while they were distracted.

'Fight,' her instincts told her, but she ignored them; that was absurd, irrational, and utterly preposterous! She'd die burnt to a crisp in less than ten seconds. She hated that she reacted so aggressively all the time. It made no sense, and when she was younger and less able to control her reactions, she had gotten into a lot of trouble for it.

It wasn't that Rue was weak, of course. She had always been freakishly strong for her age, and flexible, with superb balance. She excelled at P.E. in her little school back home… But the idea of her taking on a group of fully armed fire benders was just insane. She had to close her eyes to keep from studying the man closest to her. The longer she looked at him, the more she wanted to take advantage of his poor stance and take out his kneecap.

If she defeated him quickly, she'd be able to jump-kick the guy behind him, using the first one as a platform, and then foot-stomp the big guy on the left. If he couldn't stand, he couldn't attack her. Then she'd use him as a shield…

'You are _eleven years old_, Rue An-Din,' she reminded herself sternly, 'and every one of them is _twice your size_. Quit thinking such dumb things!' She covered her ears with her hands, as if she could somehow block her inner voice from speaking.

'A princess surrenders with honor…'

The words came from nowhere, echoing through her head like a very distant memory, and she saw herself standing tall and unyielding among stone ruins, surrounded by a semicircle of aggressors. The image lasted for only a fraction of a second, but it was so strong it made her head spin. She muffled a moan with her skirted knees.

It had been a long time since that had happened.

She had almost written off her mini-hallucinations as childhood fantasies, but it looked like that wasn't the case. Her stomach tied in knots as snippets from other visions intruded on her senses; garbled sounds and images like a dream, strung together in chaotic patterns that made no sense. Yet somehow she understood them.

She was strong. She was smart and fast. She was lithe and powerful… She was perilous.

Sliding her back upward against the wall, she straightened her legs and stood with practiced grace.

She was deadly.

-0-

"So in short," Aang concluded his retelling of the Azula-doppelganger story, "we have no idea who she really is." Katara sighed and clapped her forehead.

"Of course," she grumbled, "we couldn't _possibly_ be rid of that menace for good. It just isn't in her nature to be a good little villainess and go die in a ditch somewhere…" she trailed off awkwardly, remembering in hindsight—as everyone always did—that Zuko was Azula's big brother. He merely nodded agreement and gestured with a wave of his fingers that she should continue. Even Uncle had once agreed that Azula had to be taken down; Uncle who saw the best in everyone.

If only he were here. Perhaps he would know the right thing to do about this whole twisted mess. But time had caught up with him at last, and his heart, that vast expanse of love and forgiveness and power, was as mortal as anyone's and had eventually given up.

"I wonder who overheard you," Suki ventured after a moment of tense silence. Out of all of the women, she was taking the turn of events the best. Katara and Mai had both gone from enraged to worried and stressed, while Ty Lee had pitched a fit and stormed out of the room. Toph—who still sort of counted as a man—was lounging on the sofa, having heard the story before.

"Whoever it was," Mai sighed, "I hope they don't go spreading rumors and causing a panic." The raven-haired woman had calmed down enough to realize how unwise her shouting in the street had been.

-0-

Rue felt drowsy and her senses were muffled, like she was having a vivid dream instead of truly walking up behind a soldier in the firm plane of reality. She dropped low and swept his legs out from under him, elbowing him in the head to knock him out before he could make a sound, and catching him as he fell so he wouldn't make any noise. He was the only one who really stood between her and the freedom of a deserted side-street. She started down it, but was brought up short by a thick, cloying feeling of shame.

Why was she running?

She had standards, and a reputation to uphold.

'No I _don't_,' she reminded herself, trying to shake off the ethereal quality of the whole scene. 'I'm a nobody, with no fighting experience and no good reason to get myself incinerated.' Her feet felt heavy, as though some foreign willpower was trying to turn them around, but she kept on walking. She scooted along against the side of a building until she could no longer be seen, and then ran as fast as she could in the first direction that struck her as 'away.'

It was much like running through hip-deep water. The resistance increased until she was forced to duck into another doorway only a few dozen meters away from where she had started. She crouched, breathing hard, until she heard more footsteps over the sound of her ragged throat forcing air in and out.

The searchers had, it seemed, discovered the unconscious man, and they were enraged and determined, splitting up and roving the streets in packs. Illuminated by their conjured flames, they looked like demons to the exhausted little girl.

Cold night wind swept down the street, passing across her face and neck and helped her to feel more awake. She hoped that sensation would extend to her protesting legs as well. Why did her body have to choose right then to be so stubborn?

-0-

"Fire Lord Zuko!" the breathless messenger exclaimed as she burst through the doors. "We have just received reports from the Town Watch that posses of Royal Guards were scene roving the streets, apparently chasing a little girl in her nightgown!" The woman's face was concerned and disapproving. She obviously didn't know that the guards thought they had a good reason for their actions. At least the secret hadn't spread that far yet.

"Thank you," Zuko dismissed her, standing up and heading towards the door. "I will handle this breach of conduct personally."

"I'm coming too," Toph announced, jumping forward to catch up with the scarred man as he departed.

-0-

'I'll _conflagrate_ them…'

The thought was crazier than any she had ever had, and Rue could hardly believe it had come from her own mind. She wasn't a bender. She was pyrophobic, for crying out loud!

'Burn them to ash…' The garbled words flowed indistinctly through her brain, the way she felt when she was just waking up and still dreaming. The bracing wind had died down, and even on a chilly night in her scantily-clad state, she felt feverishly hot.

Mopping her damp forehead with her sleeve, she brushed the hair out of her face and glanced around the apparently empty street. All was dark; the wispy clouds had become more solid and covered the moon entirely.

Standing gingerly and testing her feet, she found that the heaviness was gone and she could move normally. She started off walking in the general direction of her family's shop, though she wasn't sure if going back there was a good idea. It would be the first place they'd look for her when she didn't turn up on the street. Still, it was the only place she could think of, and maybe her parents could help. If the grown-ups all got together and talked like intelligent human beings, maybe the whole matter would be solved.

'Naïve…' the thought was foreign, and she tried to ignore it. 'You rely too heavily on adults. You're stronger than they are. You should rule them; not they you.'

"You're wrong," she whispered to herself.

_Di'o's place_; she could go there for the night. It was down the street from her shop, and maybe it was just far enough away from where they had found her that the men in black wouldn't think to look there. She could tell her parents in the morning, when there were more people on the street. If there were witnesses, maybe the men wouldn't attack her.

Ducking down a narrow gap between two buildings, she headed in the direction she thought Market Street lay in, glad that she had been blessed with a decent head for directions in unfamiliar places.

'Coward,' the voice rang out in her head, high and cruel, with an imperious edge. She made a point of disregarding it.

-0-

"Who are we after?" Toph asked, striding along beside Zuko's ostrich horse, searching the city's vibration's for a child's heartbeat and a bunch of big, burly men. "Are we trying to stop the Royal Guards, or to catch Lightning-Princess Junior?"

"Both," the Fire-Lord responded flatly. "I do not order children to be hunted down, no matter who they look like. The Royal Guards are way out of line. However, we really do need to have a talk with the girl and her parents. There are some questions I'd like answered."

"I'll be sitting in on that conversation—There!" the blind earth bender cut herself off abruptly, pointing down a street. "One little heart working overtime, surrounded by a bunch of big hearts, with large bodies to go with them."

"Have I ever told you you're amazing?" Zuko asked, kicking his mount to a run. Toph grinned at him from her surfer-like stance atop a great moving bulge of stone.

"Not yet today," she replied cheekily.

-0-

"What do you want?" Rue demanded tremulously, her hands up in front of her, the way Di'o always held his when he was getting ready to fight. The only difference was that she couldn't make smoke and flames come from her fingers like he did—and she did not want too.

They had been lying in wait at the first intersection she entered, and had all made flames at once as they encircled her, trapping her in a ring of leaping red-gold light.

"You are the one called Rue, are you not?" a gravely voice addressed her from behind a mask. She glared at him and nodded.

"Yeah, and what about it?" she cried back. "What have I done that warrants you breaking into my tent and trying to kidnap me, then running me down in the middle of the night?"

"Nothing at all," the man replied, stepping menacingly forward. "Not yet, anyway."

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" she exclaimed, her voice cracking. The smell of the smoke permeating the air around her was overpowering, and there was nowhere to run that wasn't blocked by fire.

"You will come with us," the spokesman informed her flatly. "This way, princess."

"…Huh?" Rue exclaimed, unable to think of anything better to say that didn't involve a filthy oath. 'Princess? Is this guy for real?' she thought disjointedly. The fire around her crackled and danced in a light breeze that swept more smoke in her face and made her cough.

"Stop!" bellowed a vaguely familiar voice, and the circle parted to admit a man on an ostrich horse, accompanied by a woman on foot. Rue's eyes were immediately drawn to the left side of his face.

'Great,' she thought, 'now the Fire Lord's here to arrest me too. This really just couldn't get any weirder, could it?'

"Do not touch her," the Fire Lord demanded, sliding from his mount and striding forward, his long, straight brown hair blowing in the soot-muffled breeze. "You, captain, who gave you orders to detain this girl?"

'He's…' Rue realized very slowly, feeling like a gear in her brain had broken somewhere, 'he's helping me?'

"Are you Rue An-Din?" the woman asked, and Rue jumped. She had not noticed her crossing the distance between them.

"Yes," Rue replied, coughing again and rubbing her burning eyes. She could barely see through the smoke-tears, but the woman was fairly short, sturdily built, with long black hair that swept over her face. Her clothing was of the Earth Kingdom, and her feet were bare. "You're Toph Be Fong, right?"

Toph grinned, the expression just visible beneath her signature long bangs.

"That's me," she affirmed, holding out a hand, which Rue shook. Then they both turned to look—or whatever a blind woman turns for—at the Fire Lord, who was still arguing with the spokesman.

It would take an inordinately long stretch of time to recount the men's entire conversation; the way the Captain of the Royal Guard eventually took off his mask to shout in his Liege Lord's face, veins throbbing in his temples, and the sparks that began dancing near Zuko's eyes as his anger grew and manifested. In the end, the captain and his men bowed and slunk, subdued, back to the royal palace.

"That idiotic—" The Fire Lord gritted out as he practically stomped back to his mount.

"Who sent 'em?" Toph inquired. "I assume it wasn't anyone we like?"

"Apparently the eavesdropper was Chairman Ahaz's personal valet," he replied in a growl. "Naturally, the sneak immediately ran off to tell his master, and _of course_ he didn't wait and consult me before telling everyone and their aunt on the council. The captain had it from the council; he was acting on his own, albeit with what he thought was a reasonable motive."

"Excuse me," Rue ventured quietly, and both adults looked at her. "It's just," she hedged, twisting the hem of her skirt, "What is it the valet overheard? You're all behaving as if there's something wrong with me, but I don't know what it is." The fact that it was around one in the morning after a very long day and an exhausting chase had finally caught up with her, and she was swaying on her feet, her skin deathly pale.

The Fire Lord looked to the blind earth bender, whose face had creased into a slight frown of frustration.

"You look a lot like a wanted criminal," Toph finally answered after a moment of unspoken communication between her and her scarred companion.

"Is it princess Azula?" Rue asked quietly, and she saw the Fire Lord's eyes widen, his eyebrows traveling up his forehead in horror. "That captain man called me princess," she explained hurriedly, "and the only criminal princess I can think of is her. But hasn't she been locked up since the war? That was all over and done with before my lifetime. Are they stupid or something?"

"They're very stupid," Fire Lord Zuko replied calmly. "It's all just a misunderstanding. But I have to say, you do look a lot like her. Perhaps it would be best if you came to the palace for a while, just for safety, until the mess is sorted out." Rue felt like she was going to pass out from fatigue right there. She just wanted to get back into her bedroll in her parents' tent and forget any of this had ever happened.

"How about we come and get you tomorrow?" Toph suggested, almost as if she could sense what the little girl was feeling. "That way you could explain things to your parents and get your stuff."

Rue could only nod. The world around her was spinning and filling with fog.

"_After all your conniving and hard work, look at what you've been reduced to." _

_The stranger's voice was amused, and if her arms were not restrained by the straightjacket, the princess would have leapt upon and strangled him right there. The manacles on her wrists hit her pressure points, stemming her bending, so she couldn't burn him. She couldn't even make a light to see his face by._

"_What do you want?" she demanded sullenly. Her voice, which had once been so clear and clipped, sounded gravely and strained from disuse. _

_The stranger did not reply, but laughed and placed what she thought was his palm—though it was difficult to tell in the complete darkness of her cell—on her forehead._

'Metanoia_,' the stranger intoned, though she wasn't sure whether she heard it with her ears, or within her mind…_

-0-

"Unless she lies and I catch it," Toph rounded up her explanation, "or says something we know to be false, we have to assume that I can't tell if she's lying."

Zuko nodded pensively as he trod along beside her, leading the ostrich horse on which a sleeping Rue was slung as comfortably as they could manage.

Whoever this little girl was, she was causing a lot of problems. If his father was still on the throne, she would have been imprisoned immediately.

But Zuko was not, and would never become, his father. He had made a covenant in his own heart that he would never follow in that man's bloody footsteps, and upheld that promise for the last twelve years.

He did not incarcerate eleven-year-old girls, no matter who they had the misfortune to look like.

**A/N: Disclaimer: I got the pressure-point, anti-bending manacles from **_**Lightning and Flame**_**, by funvice-san. I did not make those up myself, nor have I contacted her and asked to use them, since it's a brief mention that never occurs again, and I really don't think it all that necessary. **

**If anybody else reads that story and feels it most appropriate to let him/her know I used them, please feel free to do so. I intend **_**no**_** disrespect or "idea-infringement." (I don't think stuff on fan fiction is necessarily copyrighted, so it's not copyright-infringement.) **


	5. Restrained

_Chapter 4: Restrained_

_Air whispered across her skin, in through her nose, out through her mouth. How ironic, that although she had sworn to eradicate the only person living who bent that lesser element, it was still so necessary to her azure flames._

_With a little toss of her head to flick an imperceptibly mussed hair back into place, she drew a circle in the air with her long-nailed fingers, electricity trailing behind them in an arc of blue destruction._

_He was only a child, the boy surrounded by all the glowing energy. Light reflected off of the green gemstones which comprised the cave where they fought, and her foe was nothing more than a small dark silhouette._

_He was a small target… but not too small for _her_._

Rue woke up gasping desperately for oxygen, asphyxiated by her blanket and drenched with sweat. Once she had caught her breath, she leaned forward, pressing her forehead against her knees. This was a mistake. If she hadn't smelled the faint odor of smoke on her clothes, she might have been able to pass off the events of the previous night as crazy dreams, much like the one she'd just had.

Who knew if even that was only a dream though?

"Rue, thank goodness!" Her mother's soft voice was tense with concern as she entered the little tent and sat down on her own bedroll. "What _happened_ last night?"

Rue told the story as well as she could, but she had trouble distinguishing between the fantasy and the reality. She didn't really want to tell her mother about the hallucinations; that would make them seem all the more real. She also wanted to keep secret the freakishly close resemblance she bore to a famous criminal…

Wait.

Wasn't princess Azula locked up? Hadn't she been in the loony bin since the war?

The pieces fell together in Rue's mind. So _that_ was what was going on. Azula must have escaped, and everyone was so desperate to find her that they were grasping at straws.

"The Fire Lord brought you back last night," her mother reminded her, emphasizing "Fire Lord." "What on earth was going on with you two yesterday? He was awfully nice."

'Zuzu always was _disgustingly_ gracious to you commoners.' The thought had formed itself into words and Rue had to clamp her teeth painfully down on her tongue to keep them from spilling out. Where had _that_ come from?

-0-

Zuko sneezed loudly, which aggravated his pounding headache. He had not gotten much sleep the previous night, returning home around two and getting up at six for training and paperwork and a _long, hard talk_ with the Castle Defense Chief about disciplining his officers. After that he'd had breakfast on the way to a meeting with some officials from the Southern Water Tribe, and had skipped lunch in order to finish drafting some plans for a revised education system. It didn't help that he could remember exactly how ungrateful children were for adults' hard work on improving their minds. He had been one of the worst, playing truant and pulling faces at his teachers' backs.

"How do the wicked, hedonistic kings ever have _time_ to lounge around and watch people get their heads cut off?" he demanded of the empty hallway as he trudged from his office to the throne room. The hallway remained silent, having no answer to give him.

He knew he could always have a servant go and fetch the royal seal from the royal dais for him, but his legs were quite numb and badly in need of movement. With a mental note to have a less traditional desk made, with a _chair_ instead of a floor-cushion, he pushed the side-door to the audience chamber—once called the war-room—open with the silent motion of well-oiled hinges.

-0-

"She cannot be allowed to roam free!"

_Former_ Chairman Ahaz paced restlessly up and down his office, fuming to a pair of guards who stood at attention nearby.

"She's a menace, a danger to the common people! A monster like that ought to be locked up where she can't harm anyone; it's only wise!"

"What can you do?" asked a silkily smooth voice, issuing from the lips of a tall, masked man who lounged on a couch nearby. "She's a child still. Will you have her arrested for her face? Will you lock her up in the dungeon, or send her to the Boiling Rock, perhaps? Somehow I do not think the king would approve of either option. He does tend to be rather… sentimental."

"The Boiling Rock…" Ahaz muttered, latching onto the idea and completely disregarding the rest of the man's speech. "Warden Ran does owe me a favor or two; I'm sure I could convince him to keep quiet if we sent her there!" With a feverish excitement burning in his eyes, he set about giving orders to the two guards.

Folding his arms behind his head, the masked man lay flat on the couch, a smile touching his obscured lips.

-0-

Rue felt dazed and befuddled by lack of sleep for the rest of the day, and when soldiers from the palace arrived to escort her there for safekeeping, she mounted the ostrich-horse offered to her in a dreamlike state of half-consciousness. She barely heard the leader's assurances to her parents that she would be well looked-after, and it wasn't for several minutes that she noticed the scenery around her beyond a vague idea that she was still in the city.

It was almost like there was a veil between her and what she saw, like riding in a gilded palanquin…

Slapping her cheeks with both hands, she tried desperately to jar herself into awareness. She cast her eyes around, looking for something to divert her mind. Beneath her mount's clawed hoofs, the road had become worn and rugged; the even, level paving stones of the marketplace giving way to rutted earth.

In mounting confusion, she glanced around at the worn, crumbling buildings. They appeared to be in some old, abandoned quarter of the city. It was hardly the scenery she expected on the road to the palace. Senses heightened by a growing feeling of trepidation, she snuck a peek at the soldiers around her, and her heart sank into her shoes at their identically grim expressions.

She was being kidnapped.

By the time she had gotten into her head the hazy concept of kicking her mount into a gallop and making a run for it, the guard on her left noticed her sudden attentiveness. Inhaling the cloying stink of a cloth full of sedative which he pressed over her mouth and nose, she faded off into true unconsciousness.

-0-

"Would it kill them to let me have all my clothes on?" Rue muttered, half in irritation, half to try and hide her own fear from herself as she sat huddled in the corner of a bare metal cell. Her tunic, sash and under-dress had all been taken from her, replaced by a rough red shift-like of garment and matching baggy pants. Only her shoes and underwear were her own.

She had awoken around an hour ago, if the changing shadows cast by the wan sun through the heavy clouds and the bars of the window were any indicator. So far, she had seen no one, and had no idea where she was. Standing shakily from the lingering effects of the drug, she tottered to the big steel door and pounded on it with her small, white fist. The boom it made on impact was so loud it seemed to pulse through her whole body, and she slumped dizzily to her knees. She felt like she was going to throw up.

With a squeal of rusty metal on rusty metal and a heavy click of a lock being turned, the door was unfastened, and Rue was forced to scurry away as it swung open. The people who entered were dressed in red armored uniforms and wore helmets to frame grim, stoic faces. There were three of them; a large, muscular man who appeared to be in charge from the way he carried himself, a lean woman with a face like a hound, and a squat little man with very red skin.

"It seems you've awoken," the muscular man commented without introduction or other preamble.

'Wow,' she thought, suddenly irritated, 'nothing gets by you, does it? Care to tell me where in the name of Ozai's dirty underwear I am?' But fear doused her anger like water on a flame, and all she said aloud was, "Please, where am I, and why have you brought me here?" The big man smiled threateningly before he answered.

"My deepest apologies, _highness_," he mocked her, bowing with a flourish. "Welcome to the _Boiling Rock_. I am your warden, Warden Ran."

"The Boiling Rock?" she whispered incredulously. "The _prison_?" She'd heard the horror stories her whole life. It was a detention facility for the Fire Nation's most dangerous criminals, located on an inescapable island in the center of a boiling lake. There were wild tales of horrible punishments inflicted on those who misbehaved, of terrible crimes committed by those prisoners who had nothing left to lose, of illegal interrogations and prisoners who simply… disappeared. Of course, these reports were sure to be highly exaggerated, and Fire Lord Zuko had fixed things up a lot over the course of his reign, but reality seldom quenches legends.

"Why am I here?" she demanded, fear slowly morphing back into anger. This was ludicrous! Who in their right mind locked up an eleven-year-old girl in a famous prison? Had all the grown-ups in the world gone insane?

'_As if they knew what they were doing to begin with…_' the thought flashed through her mind briefly, but she had no idea where it could've come from. She had always trusted the adults around her to keep her safe and run the world. Just because some of them were idiots didn't devalue their whole age group, did it? The word '_Naïve_' flashed through her mind, but she ignored it.

"I think there's been some sort of mistake," she protested quietly. Warden Ran shook his head.

"No," he replied, "we know exactly who you are; Rue An-Din, farm girl from the mountains." There was sarcasm in his tone, but she disregarded it, taking his words as sincere.

"If you know that, then why—?" she exclaimed, but he cut her off.

"Don't play dumb, Princess Azula," he sneered. "This disgraceful, cowardly hiding doesn't suit you. A child of royalty ought to have more pride than to cower in some ditch in the mountains for eleven years and then deny who she is to her own, less powerful brother."

"_I keep telling you people,"_ Rue exploded, _"I'm not _her_! Why will nobody listen to me?"_

"Because we all know how good a liar you are," Warden Ran replied. "Now, enough of this orientation nonsense. Follow me; I'll escort your little highness to her cell, where perhaps she'll rethink her deceitful ways."

A thousand things to say flooded Rue's mind; protests, insults, snappy comebacks, threats, pleas, but she clamped her mouth shut on the words—any of which could easily have condemned her—and followed Warden Ran out of the room. He led her down a hallway with a metal wall on one side and a railing on the other, allowing Rue to peer down into the interior of the building. On the ground floor, three or four stories below her, people in red tunics and pants milled about, cleaning the floor, eating food, or just hanging around aimlessly.

The cell she was ushered into was little more than a metal box, three meters tall or so, about as far across, and two meters deep. In one corner lay a cylindrical object; probably a bedroll. The room contained no other furnishings.

Warden Ran and the dog-faced woman departed, leaving the fat man to explain that as a new prisoner, she would be kept in her cell for the first twenty-four hours before being allowed to go out among the other inmates. Rue remained silent, staring glumly at the cold iron floor beneath her feet.

"Not what you're used to; is it?" the man commented with something almost like sympathy in his voice.

"My room at home is smaller than this," she whispered, shaking her head, "but it's made of wood, with pictures on the walls and my own little bed and quilt. This place just seems so… cold." The man shrugged and left, letting the door slide shut behind him with a loud "clang." Rue turned and ran to the door, pulling herself up on the bars of the little window to peep out.

The fat man was marching off down the hallway, and across the open expanse, she could see other guards and the occasional prisoner hurrying along on their business. Letting herself down, she slid against the metal door until she was huddled against it, kneeling on the cold, smooth floor.

"_You're wasting your time," _her own voice echoed through the twisting corridors of her mind. _"That's not one of them."_

"_How do you know?" Another voice demanded in surprise; a deep, gravelly voice, from an imperious man with a very large mouth._

"_Because I'm a people-person," she replied silkily._

Rue's throat ached and her eyes filled with tears.

"What's happening to me?" she breathed, shivering and hugging herself.

-0-

Rue could not remember ever having legitimately stayed up all night in her life. There were plenty of times where she only got a few hours of sleep, but at some point she had always drifted off.

Not this night.

She tossed and turned on the thin, lumpy bedroll for what seemed like days, and then gave up and paced the length of her cell; four steps across, and two and a half from the door to the back wall. Torches blazed in the hallway outside, but when she looked out, she could see no source of natural light, so she had no idea what time it was.

She knew it was morning when the steady tramp of booted feet came marching down the walkway, followed by a loud buzzer, which heralded the opening of the cell doors. Unnaturally hyper from exhaustion, Rue leapt up from where she had been sitting and darted out as soon as the door slid open far enough to allow her slender frame through.

Wrapping her hands around the railing on the other side of the walkway, she clung to the metal bar as if she expected the guards to decide that she wasn't going to be allowed out after all and drag her back. She was four levels of walkways above the floor, which was dotted with tables, but nearly empty of people, since the doors had only just been opened. The other prisoners all shuffled along in the same direction, and once Rue was sure no one was going to grab her, she joined the slow-moving throng as they descended the sloping hallway to the ground.

She had intended to vanish into the crowd, but by the time they entered what appeared to be the cafeteria, she felt like dozens of pairs of eyes were all trained on her. She caught four different people staring when she lifted her eyes from the ground to sweep the room for a moment.

It was only natural, she reasoned. She was tiny, compared to the other inmates. Of course, they were probably just confused because she was so young. When was the last time anyone in here saw a child, after all?

"Princess Azula," a man's voice drawled, shattering the illusion as soon as it was created. Rue had taken a pewter plate from the stack on a rickety table at the end of the room, and paused in the middle of ladling up some kind of porridge to glance at the speaker. He was a midsized man with pale skin and inky black hair with silver streaks, both streaming from his temples and spreading out in a half-groomed hedge from his chin.

"My name's Rue," Rue replied flatly, tapping the ladle on the edge of her plate to free the last drops of the unappetizing mess. "Look at me. I'm way too young to be her." She shuffled forward to make room for the woman behind her and, grabbing a tin cup full of water, started back across the room to find somewhere unobtrusive to eat her breakfast.

"No," the man replied softly, striding up behind her and swinging her around by the shoulder to face him. "I know your face… It has to be you… I'd know you anywhere; the woman who used me and then deposed me… You took all my hard work and shattered it in one night, you royal scum!" He spat, catching her on the cheek and causing her to stumble back in intimidation and disgust.

"Who are you?" she demanded, trying to keep her voice steady.

"_You've beaten me at my own game," the man murmured, but something was different; _he_ was different. His hair was dark and well-kept, pulled back into a pigtail at the nape of his neck._

"_Don't flatter yourself," _Rue's voice echoed through her mind, making her heart stutter and her knees weak._ "You were never even a player."_

"Long Feng," the man by that name snarled. "Master of the Dai Li."

"_Former_ master, you mean," a new voice quipped, and another man strode up, his face half-obscured by an unkempt steel-grey mop that probably served him as hair. He was shorter than Long Feng, and his facial hair extended further up his cheeks.

"Well, well," he sneered, his eyes raking up and down Rue in a way that frightened her considerably. "I never thought I'd see you again, _princess_. But you're right," he added, sidling around to view her from all sides. She clamped her arms to her sides, gripping her dishes and trying to shrink as small as she could. "You _are_ young. Fancy that! First I'm forced to take orders from a fourteen-year-old who can't even comb her own hair, then to add insult to injury, my precious drill was destroyed by that air-bending freak, and now you turn up! Children are the bane of my life!" He shrieked, tearing at his hair.

"Keep it down!" bellowed another voice, whether guard or prisoner Rue didn't know. The attention of the two men was diverted from her by the sound for a split-second, and she took that opportunity to turn and dash headlong for the spiraling walkway and the safety of her cramped little cell.

She knew the stories; she'd had to read about them in history class. Azula's coup in Ba Sing Se, and the Battle of the Outer Wall were ordinary events in modern history that everyone knew about, but meeting people who had actually been involved—and having them hate her right away—was a jarring experience.

'_Maggots_,' rang through her troubled mind. '_They were unworthy of their positions to begin with, or they wouldn't have lost them!_'

"_GO AWAY!"_ Rue shrieked, her dishes clattering to the metal floor and rolling off in opposite directions, spilling their contents in a pair of messy arcs of liquid and goo. _"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"_

'Couldn't if I wanted too,' came the infuriating reply, 'and I _don't_ want too. It was my head first. _You're_ the one who doesn't belong here.'

Rue's heart froze, then beat once, twice, a third time.

"Who… are you?" she whispered, stumbling back against the steel wall and clutching her temples.

She didn't need to hear the reply.


	6. React

_Chapter 5: React_

"I am Princess Azula." Rue's small voice lacked conviction as it echoed softly around the cell that night. She had spent the day sleeping, and awoken with just enough time to snag some dinner and get back before the doors closed for the evening. "I _am_ Princess Azula," she repeated a bit more strongly, with a tense, resolute breath. "I _am_ her. But I am _also_ Rue An-Din.

"And no one," she finished in a low growl, her hands balled into tight fists at her sides, "can take that away from me. Not even _me_, understand?" Azula's voice was nowhere to be heard, but Rue felt a surge of burning, scalding laughter from deep within her bones.

"You have something to say?" she demanded. Although she had gotten some sleep, she still felt tired, and that made her irritable. Irritable was fine; it was good. It made her stronger, and kept her mind focused and her own.

'No,' Azula chuckled inside of her. 'Nothing. Although,' she apparently couldn't resist adding, 'if you really _are_ me, and you're not going to let _me_ be me, I'd _love_ to know what you're going to do about _this_.'

To Rue's terror, her fists started to feel uncomfortably hot. Holding her hands up in front of her face, she stared in dread at the smoke curling up from her fingertips.

'You're afraid of me,' Azula accused. 'You're afraid of fire, my element, my expression of myself. As long as you're scared of burning…' She trailed off, not needing to finish. Rue knew that Azula felt that she would always be in control.

"Well," she snapped, steeling herself. "I guess I'm going to have to learn to control 'this,' aren't I?" She felt Azula's skepticism in her eyebrows, but slid her left foot back in a passable imitation of a fighting stance, and concentrated on her smoking hands. It was difficult, and she felt stupid after only a few seconds, but she kept at it, and somehow her mind seemed to resonate with the wild, passionate energy of the building fire. Before her startled eyes, the smoke erupted into roaring flames as big as her head. She thrust them away from her, rubbing her hands to try and put the fire out, but she only ended up making the golden inferno triple in size, turn brilliant white, and shoot out, scorching the metal wall of her cell. Her arms went limp in surprise, and as quickly as it had started, the fire went out.

'Control 'this,' huh?' Azula quipped, and the corner of Rue's mouth had to fight the spasm of her smile. '_Good_ luck with that.'

Rue gulped, pressing her palms together to keep them from shaking. She was in a locked room, with nowhere to run too or take shelter if the fire got out of control. Fear choked her for several long moments, but then she turned and kicked her bedroll—the only flammable object in the metal cell—over to one wall.

'There's nothing in here to catch fire,' she told herself sternly. 'If I aim it away from me and the bedroll, I'll be fine.' She took a deep, steadying breath, and chafed her palms together.

Sparks flew out from between her fingers at the first rub. She had fire.

-0-

Fire-bending was prohibited inside of the Boiling Rock, so Rue continued with her nocturnal habits, getting up mid-afternoon and grabbing food, staying up all night to practice, then eating breakfast and going to bed during the more watchful daylight hours. This schedule was convenient for more reasons than one; it also kept her out of sight of the other prisoners. Hopefully they would forget about her, instead of forming a lynch mob and stringing her up some afternoon.

Bending was a difficult struggle, but for some reason inside her mind she said "challenging" instead, like it was a good sort of struggle instead of a terrifying, horrible burden. Perhaps it was Azula's natural affinity for fire that was slowly muting her fear, or else she was simply growing confident and trusting herself to maintain control. Whatever it was, she was grateful for it as her heart-rate slowly stopped spiking into her throat and her cold sweats became less and less frequent.

During the first week, she focused entirely on training herself to start the fire small, keep it small, and then put it out. It took seven whole nights of practice before she felt mostly assured that it wouldn't explode out of her hands or blow up in her face. After that, she worked on making it bigger without losing control, and also on starting it without rubbing her hands together. The feeling of friction was what created the sparks, but she knew that was all in her mind. Other fire-benders didn't go around rubbing their hands before starting a blaze. She was able to do it by snapping her fingers, and then by simply sliding her thumb across the tip of her index finger, but she couldn't just make it appear by waving her hands.

'You created the inhibition yourself, you know,' Azula told her near the end of her second week of self-training. The former Firelord had remained a silent and carefully disinterested observer of the proceedings so far, but Rue could sense that she was getting frustrated by the younger girl's blunders. 'You _want_ it to be controllable, containable,' the princess explained, drawing Rue's attention to her hands. 'You don't really want to be able to start it without a catalyst.

Now, feel this,' she instructed, pushing Rue's mind into the veins of her left hand. 'Your blood running through your veins has heat in it, and it rubs against your flesh, creating the same friction you've been making with your hands. There's fire inside me, Rue. You don't have to start a new one on the outside every time. You just have to push it outwards.' Rue's motionless palm erupted in flames, but then Azula seemed to recollect herself. She fell silent, slamming down a "wall" of sorts between her consciousness and Rue's.

This silence lasted for three nights, but on the third, she simply couldn't restrain herself. Azula was a bit like fire herself—wild and hard to control—Rue thought with a smirk, as her counterpart showed her how badly she was breathing and standing.

'Fire needs three things to burn,' the princess snapped, mentally prodding Rue's spine into better posture. 'Heat and fuel are supplied by the bender's energy, but the third thing is air, and with the way you're standing, your lungs are barely filling three quarters of the way when you inhale.'

'Bend your knees; relax your shoulders,' she instructed her the next night. 'Fire is a fluid, free element. When your body is tense and hard like it is right now, it can't flow like it's supposed too. You really should stretch before you do this, you know. Fire comes from your body. You have to take care of your body if you're going to be any good at controlling the fire it creates.'

And just like that, Azula started teaching Rue bending. Somehow the project she'd started to keep her alter-ego at bay had brought them together, but Rue found she didn't mind. It was almost as if, when Azula could release her pent-up emotions through bending, and feel some measure of control over her own body as a teacher, she was less cruel and horrible. Over the first month of her captivity, Rue progressed quickly through the basics.

Although the idea of being burned still frightened her, bending made her feel powerful; protected. When she first started her nightly training, she would dart out in the morning and evening, snatch up the first food she saw, and run back to her cell in hopes that no one would want to expend the energy to chase her. Now, she strode confidently among her fellow prisoners, waited in the line like everyone else, and walked slowly and deliberately back to her cell.

The scorn and resentment directed towards her at first hadn't gone away, but the initial shock had worn off, and most of the other inmates chose to ignore her. A few still glared at her hostilely whenever they saw her, as though they would like very much to jump on her and beat her to a pulp, but she would square her shoulders and walk past them with her face cold and impassive.

'A princess does not cower,' Azula would scold her every time she was tempted to scurry past them in fear. 'She treats her foes with dignity. Stand up straight and look them in the eyes. Remember that even if you're not "allowed" too, you _could_ throw fire at them.'

That did help, actually; remembering her secret bending. Azula would remind her of it often—'you could do it, if you wanted too'—and it would settle her squirming insides and give her the courage to nod curtly at the most frightening of the guards, and hold her head up when she had to pass near Long Feng and his cronies. She didn't know if she'd ever have the guts to actually _fight_ with fire-bending, but knowing that she had the power to do it kept her choking fear at bay.

After the first month, the warden became suspicious about what Rue did with her time, locked in her cell all day except for mealtimes. He posted a guard outside her door one evening, and she was forced to skip her nightly training regimen, since fire-bending wasn't allowed. With nothing else to do, she pulled out her bedroll and tried to get more sleep.

The next day, after a boring night divided between shallow naps and pacing the length of the cell, Rue decided that there was nothing for it but to start going out and about during the daylight hours. She got her breakfast as usual, face grim and determined, steps firm and sure across the metal floor, but unlike every other day, she made her way to the extreme end of one of the long tables, set her meal down and seated herself on the metal bench.

She could feel the other prisoners' eyes boring into the back of her neck, and the impulse seized her to pull her hair down from its high ponytail as a makeshift curtain. Azula's disgust at her cowardice lanced through her cheeks, warming them with shame, and she sat up as straight and proud as she could and ate her gruel with deliberate slowness, like she was daring anyone to approach her and tell her she didn't belong there.

No one did. They were surprised, but after a while they slowly started to shift back to what they had been doing before she arrived; a buzz of white noise rose back to its normal level as frozen arm-wrestling matches continued and conversations picked back up.

After breakfast, prison guards turned up with mops and brooms, and started picking out prisoners that they didn't think had cleaned in a while to do chores. Rue had not yet cleaned at all—since she was never present when they picked out the day's drudges—so a mop and bucket were thrust in her direction, and she was instructed to clean the east quarter of the mess hall.

'This low toil is unbefitting of a princess!' Azula raged in annoyance, but Rue told her to hush and grow up. She had wielded a mop more times than she could count, and was not too proud to make herself useful.

'Just think of it like being undercover,' she snapped back. 'Didn't you do stuff like this when you infiltrated Ba Sing Se?' As she pushed and pulled the mob back and forth across the metal floor, she bent her knees and widened her stance, turning the chore into a back-and-thigh-exercise.

'Mai and Ty-Lee ended up with some grunt work,' Azula admitted flippantly, 'but I was the leader; I never had to get my hands dirty.'

'Heh, what a powder-puff!' Rue snickered as she slid her feet back and forth.

'Bend your knees more,' Azula instructed, changing the subject quickly. 'Get your rear end centered for balance and don't extend so far forward with your strokes.'

'Says the girl who's never mopped before,' Rue shot back, but she lowered her stance and solidified her footing. Azula may not have known a thing about cleaning, but her martial-arts skills were fierce, and Rue knew better than to argue with a competent teacher.

So it continued for four days. Rue practiced bending briefly in the evenings—the guard at her door had been reassigned once she started leaving during the day—and then slept at night like everybody else. She was assigned cleaning all four days, to make up for never having done so before, and Azula turned each chore into a lesson, mostly to distract herself from the fact that she was doing manual labor.

It was in the evening of the fourth day that things went sour.

They ambushed her after dinner, on her way back to her cell; some of Long Feng's followers and a motley assortment of others, whose faces were dimly familiar in the more unimportant reaches of Azula's memory. They surrounded her in a blind corner behind the stairs, brandishing mop-handles and hefty fists.

"What's your game, little princess?" demanded a fellow who she thought might have worked for her. "You get yourself captured, and then… what? What does this place have that you want?"

"Huh?" was all Rue could get out before the next thug cut her off.

"Is it treasure? You hid something valuable here, and now you've come to retrieve it?" His eyes shone greedily, and that helped Rue to push past her confusion and put two and two together.

'They can't believe I just got captured like normal,' she realized with a mix of irritation and pride—the latter emotion stemming almost entirely from Azula's portion of their shared brain.

"C'mon," the first speaker growled, brandishing his makeshift weapon at her and forcing her to take a half-step back to keep her nose in the correct shape.

"Get that out of my face," Azula's voice snapped, catching Rue off-guard. Her moment of intimidation had let her alter-ego take control.

"Or what?" her attacker sneered.

Azula needed no second invitation.

Rue's defensive instincts would not allow her to bind her limbs; she could not hold herself still, and therefore she could not prevent herself from jumping on them, fists leaving arcs of trailing flames in their wake. It was a short confrontation, at least. After about thirty seconds the prison guards realized what was going on and dragged her away. But the fire-princess had done her work, and the ring of attackers was now a pile of barely-conscious, blistering, bleeding men.

"In the cooler with her!" shouted one guard, and she was hauled off with a screech of rage still tearing across her throat. They half pulled, half carried her up several flights of metal stairs until they reached the long, narrow hallway which led into the coolers—little cylindrical rooms insulated to keep all heat out, and freeze the fire, both literal and emotional, out of the bender.

They flung her into one, and her head cracked loudly against the frozen back wall, its echo drowned out by the creak and slide of the shutting door. Rue leaned against the cold metal for support, and then slid down to curl up on the floor, knees drawn up to her chest and arms folded between her legs and body. The cold was piercingly painful, but it cleared her head, like going outside into the frigid mountain air in winter, and hiking through the thigh-deep snowdrifts until she calmed down from whatever was upsetting her.

Azula did not like the cold, she realized. Her worst fits of temper had not been her own, but her counterpart's, and the uncomfortable cold had silenced her.

"You overdid it," she chided aloud.

'They deserved what they got!' Azula raged within her, but her lips were sealed; Rue was back in control. 'How dare they threaten me? They were my servants; my lowly followers! How dare they show such disloyalty?' The pain of betrayal washed through Rue, cutting and icier than her surroundings. This was something that hurt Azula more than normal—something with a painful history behind it to add lemon juice to the proverbial paper-cut.

'In another minute,' Rue thought heavily, 'you would've killed them all.'

'So?' Azula demanded, throwing herself doggedly against the cage of Rue's mind. 'They started it! It's not like anyone would miss them; they're lowlife scum! They wouldn't be here otherwise!'

'No,' Rue told her quietly. 'That still doesn't give you the right to take their lives.'

The two girls glared at each other mentally, but Azula had no choice but to back down. It wasn't like she could do anything without Rue letting her or losing control. After that, they had nothing to do but rub their skin and watch clouds of their whitened breath drift away and vanish into the frigid air.

At length, Rue found she was able to hear voices over the sound of her own teeth chattering; someone was having a conversation in the corridor outside, and they were getting nearer and nearer with each phrase.

"…down this way," was the first intelligible thing she caught, and then, "burned them pretty badly. We _had_ too—"

"What did you _expect_?" Demanded a second voice harshly, and the dry tenor sounded vaguely familiar to Rue's cold-befuddled mind.

"Open it up," commanded the first voice—the warden, she realized, as the curved door slid open with a rough, grating protest of metal on metal.

The vivid red scar was _not_ the first thing she noticed as she looked at her rescuer. Her eyes were drawn to the unblemished side of his face; the side that showed expression. He looked shaken, surprised, angry, and a little guilty, but when their eyes met, relief flashed across his cheekbones and relaxed his shoulders.

'When did I stop noticing the scar?' One of the girls wondered dazedly, but before they could figure out who had had the thought, warm, comforting darkness seeped into their mind, fogging away all other sensations.


End file.
